Yeah, it's more like "DoD vanity project used as backdoor funding/justification for wildlife preserve".
The USA launders unpalatable social programs through the military, including enormous amounts of basic science funding, several tuition-free universities, and four of the largest jobs programs in the world. Adding wildlife preservation to the list isn't very surprising.
Do you think that these projects don't further the DoD's core objectives? The vast majority of such projects do contribute to the departments ability to wage war and build a competent force.
Free school lunches in the US are a defense program. The draft in WWII was impeded by the fact that poor kids tended to be malnourished, and grew up to be physically unfit for military service.
So Michelle Obama should have tried to position the push for improved nutrition in school lunches as a pro-military effort to get conservative support?
To get conservative support, Michelle should consider a push to support one income families where one family member can dedicate themselves to provide improved nutrition for their own children.
Conservatives believe that the State is not a proper substitute for mother + father family, but any measure strengthening the biological family is absolutely anathema in liberal circles. At some level your rhetorical question acknowledges this state of affairs.
I would be curious to see an analysis of this. How much of the USA's military budget goes to things that would normally be done by other institutions in a country like Canada?
Canada doesn't have a VA for example. We just have universal health care.
I don’t know if it’s even possible to tease out this number. The US Army even purchases Skilcraft pens [0] in large part because they are manufactured by the visually impaired. Basically every dollar they spend has multiple purposes.
> The US Army even purchases Skilcraft pens...in large part because they are manufactured by the visually impaired
This is underselling it a little. Skilcraft quite literally would not exist if the federal government weren't required by law to buy supplies from them.
The ship this wood is harvested for is older than the DoD and most states. It had to come from somewhere. The DoD isn't even mentioned in this NAVY article. Not everything is a conspiracy.
> The ship this wood is harvested for is older than the DoD. The DoD isn't even mentioned in this NAVY article.
Huh? DoN is part of DoD...
> Not everything is a conspiracy.
In what sense am I accusing anyone of conspiring? Massive social programs are palatable if you tie them directly to defense. Otherwise they're not palatable. That's not a description of a conspiracy. It's a kind of weird state of affairs, granted, but no conspiring is going on.
The DoN is part of DoD. I promise. Even your last link mentions DoN is a child agency of DoD and the DoN wiki page states "The United States Department of the Navy (DoN) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the United States of America" [1].
> If a group within the DoD has plans for a project other than the stated goals, that is a conspiracy.
But that's not what my comment is claiming, at all. There's no conspiracy. Everyone is acting on sincerely held beliefs. "We need a large standing military for defense." Or "We need R&D for defense." Or "We need a huge number of bases spread out across the country for defense." Or "We need this base anyways and the Constitution is symbolically important to our mission/history/culture so we need an oak grove." Etc.
The result is a sort of sprawling socialist state operating in parallel to the rest of the USA, administered by and benefiting people who don't call the cow a cow, but there's nothing conspiratorial going on. Everything operates on sincerely held beliefs. Or more often jaded disinterest in bending the status quo. But not conspiracy, per se.
If you just asked for an oak grove it'd be a fight. Say it's for defense ans there's much less of a fight. Ditto for literally anything else. That's all I'm saying.
Most of the US weapon systems have production in many different states as jobs programs for the senators of those states. You are absolutely correct that the DoD has a lot of political reasons to exist outside of fighting wars.
It has nothing to do with it being a conspiracy and everything to do with an opportunity to take a cheap jab at the US for doing it wrong (as if literally every country ever doesn't shoehorn hard to justify niceties into more palatable to fund projects).
> an opportunity to take a cheap jab at the US for doing it wrong
I don't have any issues with the DoD. There's nothing wrong with tax-funded social programs for rural communities. Collectively being more honest about the dual purpose of most DoD spending would be great, but whatever.
As a mushroom enthusiast, this is disappointing. I was imagining millions of pounds of maitake just sitting there, waiting for someone to steal them from the military.
The New College At Oxford story of replacing the oak beams in the dining hall is more fact than legend (though it's usually told in a very Just-So way that's a little too tidy), and it's not alone in this sort of husbandry: https://blog.longnow.org/02014/12/31/humans-and-trees-in-lon...
I mean, the ultimate in luxury flooring is probably a floor made of gold. But Bog Oak would make rather handsome flooring. Some of it is thousands of years old, not just hundreds.
No. It was just a bad funny. I've never seen gold flooring, but I have seen gold toilets/faucets. So clearly there's a line, and you just help define it. ;-)
My partner had a hard time believing me when I told them England was denuded of trees to build their navy. One of the advantages during the Revolutionary War for the Colonies was the hardness of the oak wood that could still be found. I guess we should be happy/lucky there was still enough left for Old Ironside.
There absolutely was a navy, initially composed of retrofitted merchant ships, and most definitely made in what would become the USA. Not to downplay the importance of the French Navy, or the French involvement in the war in general, but even France seized ships from the Continental Navy, before they finally became involved directly, many years after the Continental Navy formed in 1775.
And something tells me there was much parlaying from Franklin and Silas Deane when it came to trade partnerships between the future country and France for natural resources - France's own forests were and are somewhat decimated.
White oak is used specifically in preference to red oak because the white oaks (a bunch of species, not just Quercus alba, are considered white oak) have tyloses blocking the pores in the wood. The red oaks (ditto) do not. The fact that white oak is also fairly decay resistant probably has something to do with this as well.
A neat parlor trick is to take a bit of red oak, put one end in your mouth, the other in a glass of water and blow bubbles.
This is also why white oak is famously used for whiskey barrels and other tight cooperage (vessels holding liquids), and red oak is used for slack cooperage (vessels that don't hold liquids).
Live oak (Quercus Virgina) is also used throughout the ship because of it's hardness and strength. Live oak is comparable in hardness to ebony, with incredible rot resistance (more so than even white oak).
Even more fascinating because of the hardness of live oak the constitution famously made the cannonballs of the british literally bounce away, causing a crew man to proclaim her sides are made of iron.
The whole channel is amazing by the way, if you think you might have any kind of interest in traditional shipbuilding techniques. Louis is an incredible teacher and extremely talented at his craft.
I was under the impression that the USS Constitution was made of southern live oak (and that the US Navy had tracts of it in the southern US).
Turns out that it’s true, the “frame” is made of southern live oak. I guess the rest of it is white oak.
EDIT - there is also a strange story about the Naval Live Oaks site near Pensacola, Florida. It was established to provide live oak timber for the Navy but after WWII they finally decided they didn’t need it any more. They gave it to the state of Florida with the express limitation that it had to be managed as parkland and could only be used for public purposes.
So… decades later the National Park Service is establishing the Gulf Islands National Seashore and wants the Naval Live Oaks land back. Florida says no. An “enterprising” US Attorney finds an old newspaper article about a circus that came to Pensacola in the summer time and the elephant died. Well, they needed a place to bury it and chose the Naval Live Oaks area. The feds sue Florida and claim that an elephant burial ground is not a public purpose. The judge agrees and the land ownership reverts back and becomes part of the national seashore.
"According to the Naval History and Heritage Command Detachment Boston, today's U.S.S. Constitution maintains about 10 to 15 percent of its original wood, including the lower futtocks, keel and the deadwood at the stem and stern."
An exciting vacation would be to put out at sea with a few dozen of your compatriots on an oak sailing vessel (brig, cutter, sloop, bark, schooner, etc). The cargo manifest necessary to accommodate our modern existence would consist of the "saftey" of last-resort amenities like durable fiberglass lifeboats, a diesel propulsion engine, global communication access, fuel, emergency rations, and a quality water filtration system (easily recharged by activated charcoal) - but the shared adventure would be cooperation with the wind&stars to navigate the dominant surface area travel medium of Sol-3.
Manually hoisting the sails&anchor to participate in the traditional routines of the classical sailor would justify the communal protein-rich Feast at sunset. You would not need to drink alcohol all day to avoid the effects of water-borne illness (unless Challenge Accepted), nor face the pains of the commonly contracted vitamin-C deficient Scurvy of Yesterday.
The fellowship required to travel by sea via human labor&ingenuity would be far more pleasurable than the solitude of energy spent in a weight-lifting room of a hotel along the generic "beach-front resort" where conventional citizens Stay-For-A-Week-or-Three while encountering generic go-cart or water park "adventures" while consuming the "expensive" meals of a static location (prices set by the Absence-of-the-Fearful-Rent-Seeker).
what's strangely funny to me about this. so these trees are grown at the naval surface warfare center - crane. however, there used to be a naval surface warfare center - white oak. where ironically I guess they didn't grow the white oak. (it was closed in the mid 90s and is now the FDA HQ).
65 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadThe USA launders unpalatable social programs through the military, including enormous amounts of basic science funding, several tuition-free universities, and four of the largest jobs programs in the world. Adding wildlife preservation to the list isn't very surprising.
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/10/10/americas...
Conservatives believe that the State is not a proper substitute for mother + father family, but any measure strengthening the biological family is absolutely anathema in liberal circles. At some level your rhetorical question acknowledges this state of affairs.
There's a couple National Parks here that are larger than 64,000 acres too.
Canada doesn't have a VA for example. We just have universal health care.
The GDP comparisons alone may be misleading.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skilcraft
This is underselling it a little. Skilcraft quite literally would not exist if the federal government weren't required by law to buy supplies from them.
Huh? DoN is part of DoD...
> Not everything is a conspiracy.
In what sense am I accusing anyone of conspiring? Massive social programs are palatable if you tie them directly to defense. Otherwise they're not palatable. That's not a description of a conspiracy. It's a kind of weird state of affairs, granted, but no conspiring is going on.
> Huh? DoN is part of DoD...
The US Navy was founded in 1794 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy
The USS Constitution was launched in 1797 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution
The US Department of Defense was formed in 1947 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De...
--
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_th...
A conspiracy only requires conspiring. It doesn't need to include conspiring for harmful activity.
But that's not what my comment is claiming, at all. There's no conspiracy. Everyone is acting on sincerely held beliefs. "We need a large standing military for defense." Or "We need R&D for defense." Or "We need a huge number of bases spread out across the country for defense." Or "We need this base anyways and the Constitution is symbolically important to our mission/history/culture so we need an oak grove." Etc.
The result is a sort of sprawling socialist state operating in parallel to the rest of the USA, administered by and benefiting people who don't call the cow a cow, but there's nothing conspiratorial going on. Everything operates on sincerely held beliefs. Or more often jaded disinterest in bending the status quo. But not conspiracy, per se.
If you just asked for an oak grove it'd be a fight. Say it's for defense ans there's much less of a fight. Ditto for literally anything else. That's all I'm saying.
It has nothing to do with it being a conspiracy and everything to do with an opportunity to take a cheap jab at the US for doing it wrong (as if literally every country ever doesn't shoehorn hard to justify niceties into more palatable to fund projects).
I don't have any issues with the DoD. There's nothing wrong with tax-funded social programs for rural communities. Collectively being more honest about the dual purpose of most DoD spending would be great, but whatever.
And 50,000 acres of forest is its own reward.
The New College At Oxford story of replacing the oak beams in the dining hall is more fact than legend (though it's usually told in a very Just-So way that's a little too tidy), and it's not alone in this sort of husbandry: https://blog.longnow.org/02014/12/31/humans-and-trees-in-lon...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog-wood https://www.wood-database.com/bog-oak/ https://bogoakdesignstudio.com/en/flooring/
It would dent easily (gold is quite soft), and it's very thermally conductive so it's feel quite cold through your shoes.
Or more plausibly, this titanium–gold alloy 4x as hard as steel, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600319
That would be quite garish and tasteless, and therefore not luxurious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_kauri
They quite literally mine for wood.
And something tells me there was much parlaying from Franklin and Silas Deane when it came to trade partnerships between the future country and France for natural resources - France's own forests were and are somewhat decimated.
A neat parlor trick is to take a bit of red oak, put one end in your mouth, the other in a glass of water and blow bubbles.
This is also why white oak is famously used for whiskey barrels and other tight cooperage (vessels holding liquids), and red oak is used for slack cooperage (vessels that don't hold liquids).
Even more fascinating because of the hardness of live oak the constitution famously made the cannonballs of the british literally bounce away, causing a crew man to proclaim her sides are made of iron.
Hence the name old ironsides. https://www.nps.gov/articles/old-ironsides.htm
The USS Constitution is also the only active US Navy ship to have sunk another ship.
The whole channel is amazing by the way, if you think you might have any kind of interest in traditional shipbuilding techniques. Louis is an incredible teacher and extremely talented at his craft.
My property here in Illinois has White Oak and Black Walnut on it. They are beautiful, fantastic trees that grow so easily in this area.
Turns out that it’s true, the “frame” is made of southern live oak. I guess the rest of it is white oak.
EDIT - there is also a strange story about the Naval Live Oaks site near Pensacola, Florida. It was established to provide live oak timber for the Navy but after WWII they finally decided they didn’t need it any more. They gave it to the state of Florida with the express limitation that it had to be managed as parkland and could only be used for public purposes.
So… decades later the National Park Service is establishing the Gulf Islands National Seashore and wants the Naval Live Oaks land back. Florida says no. An “enterprising” US Attorney finds an old newspaper article about a circus that came to Pensacola in the summer time and the elephant died. Well, they needed a place to bury it and chose the Naval Live Oaks area. The feds sue Florida and claim that an elephant burial ground is not a public purpose. The judge agrees and the land ownership reverts back and becomes part of the national seashore.
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/2020/12/29/gulf-islands...
"According to the Naval History and Heritage Command Detachment Boston, today's U.S.S. Constitution maintains about 10 to 15 percent of its original wood, including the lower futtocks, keel and the deadwood at the stem and stern."
https://www.seaportboston.com/faq/uss-constitution/how-much-...
Manually hoisting the sails&anchor to participate in the traditional routines of the classical sailor would justify the communal protein-rich Feast at sunset. You would not need to drink alcohol all day to avoid the effects of water-borne illness (unless Challenge Accepted), nor face the pains of the commonly contracted vitamin-C deficient Scurvy of Yesterday.
The fellowship required to travel by sea via human labor&ingenuity would be far more pleasurable than the solitude of energy spent in a weight-lifting room of a hotel along the generic "beach-front resort" where conventional citizens Stay-For-A-Week-or-Three while encountering generic go-cart or water park "adventures" while consuming the "expensive" meals of a static location (prices set by the Absence-of-the-Fearful-Rent-Seeker).
there are some others.